I found this Retriever barge pilot making a real mess of one of the belts, he had cans everywhere. Opened the first one, found a small armor repper in it. Cleaned up that mess. He immediately locked me up and sicced some drones on me. Touchy, touchy!

OK, this is the story about the one that got away. It was THIIIISSSSS big, I tell you!

It was, too.

So there I was in the Kaimon belts, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a feller named SirCoWart of Fanatic’s Inc. [FANS]. He was mining in a Raven battleship and jetting his ore into a can, alternating between tech one mining drones and tech one combat drones. I had to look. Yes, he was all of one month and five days old.

If there was ever a mining battleship that I could kill in my combat Crane, it would be this one. Breaking the tank with one heavy missile launcher, that’s always going to be the problem. But who is to say that he has a tank at all?

The attempt, it must be made. It may cost me a Crane, but unless he’s specifically tackle fit and baiting for ruffians like me, I ought to have speed on him and be able to get away regardless.

So, in to his can, flip his can, and hit the orbit button. He wastes no time in locking me up and firing at me with what feels like a couple of cruise missiles. Tickles, but not painful. For me it’s turn on the warp disruptor and heavy missile, away!

Of course, he’s in a corp, and my biggest worry is that he’ll summon friends. So I’m watching local like a fanatic. Meanwhile, he’s showing no sign of active tank, and my missiles are chewing nicely through his passive regen. My own passive regen does the trick until he launches his drones, and then I need a few rep cycles. But he just plain doesn’t have the DPS to break my tank. I can do this until I run out of missiles. Phew!

When his shields drop to about 20%, he turns on a booster. Oddly, it doesn’t have the oomph to fill him back up; even when I pause to reload missiles, he doesn’t get back to full, though he gets close. We go through several cycles of this, and each time, his shields are lower. It’s a near thing, but I feel like I am indeed getting ahead of his tank.

What’s more, his time to summon friends is running out — looking at the timers, his corp aggro against me is down to its last minute. If something doesn’t happen soon, he’s going to be toast, and I’m going to have the kill of my Crane career.

Finally, he realizes he’s got a problem, and commences to beg in local for some assistance:

Of course I deny being a pirate and explain that I plan to keep shooting until I run out of missiles. I might have been better off staying silent, because two things happened pretty much simultaneously, either one of which were fatal to my evil plan. First, I ran out of Fury missiles, and the backup Caldari Navy ones just weren’t hitting as hard. Second, an unaffiliated Basilisk showed up and started repping my friend in the Raven. So, that meant it was pretty much all over.

Drat.

We exchanged some friendly words in local (he admitted he got lucky) and some more in private; he even linked me his fit, which confirms my suspicion it was a near-run thing. He had four mining lasers, two cruise launchers, a salvager and a tractor high. Mids were a large best named shield booster, a boost amplifier, ballistic and thermal amplifiers, and a couple of cap rechargers. Lows were a damage control, three ballistic controls, and a large armor repper. Rigs were all cap controls.

A pilot that young has GOT to be very short on basic support skills to be in a Raven at five weeks old, which explains how I was getting past that one large shield repper; even with all that cap gear, he could not keep it fed. So, I assume, the armor repper would not have done him any more good.

Moral of the story: carry more missiles, and keep mouth shut in local.

Thanks to SirCoWart for being cool about it and providing me with an excellent challenge! I don’t blame you for saving your boat by whatever means necessary, but words cannot describe how badly I wanted to see it go “Kaboom”.

It’s a classic mining cruiser setup. Some mining lasers, some mining drones, and one gun for dealing with rats. Maybe a little bit of tank, almost never any propulsion or tackle.

It’s a BAD fit for shooting at the “stupid fuck in the industrial that just took my ore”, but they never can seem to to resist the temptation. This guy did better than most, he had a few meters per second of speed on me and he was getting out close to the edge of my point range before he popped:

Well, his name is Schwen. Apparently he and his buddy still haven’t figured out what makes a giant secure container “secure”.

Found him today Osprey-mining into a total of eight unanchored GSCs, of which six were full. One quick visit in my trusty Bustard later…well, as they used to say on Dr. Katz, you know what the music means.

So, has nobody sent the numpties in empire a memo about can flippers? Is this honored art forgotten? Because man, today it’s been like shooting fish in a rain barrel.

For starters, I found Ddykarn. He made the classic mistake. He was jet-can mining in a Retriever with one T1 combat drone out. I picked up his small quantum of ore, and aligned for home. To him it must have looked like the helpless hauler was running away. His drone nibbled me. I blew him up.

Less than nine minutes later, I find another Retriever doing the same thing, only this one has mining drones out. His jet-can is almost full, so I flipped it, taking what I could carry. Again, align for home. Again, he locked me up, and launches one combat drone. Then, he simultaneously attacks me and flips the can back. This guy wanted a fight.

He got it. Note the small armor repper, which he was using heavily, for all the good it did him:

you mother fucker i hope you go to fuckin hell you stupid ass im going to hunt your sorry ass down

Getting mail like that always makes me feel better about blowing up the young and inexperienced.

So, after blowing him up, I looted his strip miner, flipped the ore back into my can (what I couldn’t carry), and docked up. Did some other errands, noticed his timer had run out, was thinking about going back to pick up the ore. When suddenly, his icon went all ragey-skull in local. My, my, did he just flip the ore back a second time? Some people need more than one exposure to life’s important lessons.

This time, I undocked in a bomber. Warped to 20. My can is gone, but there’s a flashy red Wreathe, just sitting there.

Uncloak, lock, paint, torps away!

And lo, there was an earthshattering kaboom, just as the scripture promised:

The first time I’d annoyed a mining Osprey until he warped off, then was waiting for him to return. Instead, a Dread Gurista Arrogator frigate spawned. I engaged it with heavy missile in my Crane, a slow process, when a newbie ratting in a caracal showed up. He started shooting too, but not in time. Kaboom, my wreck.

But, uh, he’s closer to it than me. Does he know it’s worth a quick scoot-n-scoop?

Apparently not — I crawled to the wreck and was rewarded with ammo, tag, a Dread Gurista small shield booster, and a DG invul. Nice!

[Updated insert: ZOMG, I am an idiot. I looked at the Dread Gurista Invulnerability Field, noted the stats were the same as Caldari Navy, and did a quick contracts check that I must have flailed somehow. Because I failed to discover that it’s a freaking 400 million ISK piece of loot! “Nice” doesn’t even begin to cover it … this is the single best item of loot in my Eve career to date.]

Then, a bit later, in another .7 system, I noticed a Hulk wreck and was going to check it out when an unlooted Dread Gurista wreck nearby caught my eye. Went to check it out and you could have knocked me over with a feather:

In all my eve career, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a ship blueprint drop of any kind. And it was just laying there in space, waiting to be salvaged!